As BoG discusses 'Champions' League' participation, Holland remains lukewarm on European games

ESPN's Pierre LeBrun reports that the NHL's Board of Governors found a glimmer of hope at their meetings in potential revenue generated from more participation in the "Champions' Hockey League," a sub-set of the vast number of European hockey leagues' in-season mini-tournaments in which the best teams and/or playoff champs play against each other...

As we mentioned Monday night, the NHL presented a report on the Champions Hockey League in Europe and again bounced around the idea Tuesday of possibly investing money in the enterprise.

"Well, anything that we can do on a worldwide basis to help grow the game we think would be a good thing," [NHL commissioner Gary] Bettman said. "Anything that perhaps could get us even more involved from an international standpoint in working to work the game would be a good thing. We spoke about this generally, but this could be an interesting business opportunity, as well."

But Bettman made it clear he didn't envision NHL teams actually playing alongside European club teams in the competition.

"We're not talking about integrating our schedules," Bettman said. "It would be more along the lines of exhibition games."

LeBrun says that the league also plans on putting more teams in Europe to start the regular season during the 2009-2010 season, but I wouldn't put money on the Red Wings buying in without serious compensation in terms of both scheduling (so that the team could recover from jet lag) and a few nods in other aspects (like holding a Winter Classic II down the line):

In the meantime, the NHL is still planning to expand its regular-season openers next fall in Europe to include six teams, up from four this season.

"That's what we're working on, although it hasn't been finalized," Bettman said. "It's far from done, and we have a lot to do with the Players' Association, but we're talking about six teams and four markets."

Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland said his team has been approached to see if it was interested in being among those six teams, although no decision has been made on that front.

Despite the fact that the Red Wings' roster has seven Swedes, a Czech, a Russian, and two Slovaks (that's about half a roster of European descent, and, for those of you keeping score at home, the Wings have seven Canadians and four Americans on their roster as well), Holland has repeatedly stated that he would prefer that his team not take part in European season-openers due to the mental and physical wear and tear as evidenced by bumpy starts for the vast majority of teams that have taken part in overseas games. Something tells me that Holland wouldn't allow his team to be another's plot device (see: the Winter Classic II) if he does relent.

While I'm talking about the BoG meetings, TSN's Darren Dreger reported from the meetings in a 2:35 video clip on TSN.ca.

Regrettaby, my favourite GM will return from sunny Palm Beach to a nasty mess of rain turning back into snow tonight. We've had snow, sleet, rain, sleet, snow, sleet, and then rain over the last few days, so he missed out on some lovely weather...